Upon entering the theater for your first-ever live experience, you pull open two heavy, double-wide wooden doors before staring excitedly at your ticket — hopefully obtained in the center theater section, but we’ll get back to that later. After locating your destination, you plop down, flip through the program and sit, anticipating the wonders that lie ahead. You begin to look around, noticing the colors of the stage, vibrancy of the people, and, finally, turn your glance upward to the array of lights artfully crafted and strategically placed above your head.
These lights are not, as one might assume, left show after show and turned on when their use becomes necessary. Instead, they are creatively planned, minutely placed and ready to carry your eyes through the production, manipulating the experience along the way. Ben Pilat (pronounced like “pilot”), LA Ballet resident lighting designer and Pepperdine assistant professor of theatre, knows this process all too well.
“I can use lighting to make you think that time is slowing down or speeding up — to indicate the pass- ing of seasons, changing from night to day,” Pilat said. “All of those things that aren’t really happening, but we create the illusion of them happening in the theatrical world.”
What has become an ingrained process to Pilat began as a backstage job in high school. It wasn’t until his first college lighting experience that he recognized the art behind lighting design and the power that light has to affect an audience.
“My goal as the lighting designer is sitting in the audience and being the ideal audience member. I’m looking at this through the eyes of the audience and I’m crafting and adjusting what I want them to experience.”
As a former magician, Pilat admits the two professions of magic and light- ing have many elements in common, such as controlling and manipulating audience perception. In the same way a magician creates wonder and awe, a lighting designer too utilizes the art of illusion — to make things appear, disappear and even float. In the past, his favorite magic tricks involved non-gimmicky household items, where Pilat could display surprising results out of common objects.
Before coming to Pepperdine in 2012, Pilat worked assisting on and off Broadway for live years in New York before beginning his job with the LA Ballet in 2009. During his time as resident lighting designer, he has created ap- proximately a dozen lighting designs. He also won the United States Institute for Theatre Technology’s 2010 Rising Star Award for his excellence and achievement in the field of lighting.
Part of Pilat’s charm is his fascination with the world. From restaurants to bars, theaters and natural sunlight, he is always aware of the lighting around him. “I can’t turn that off,” he said.
“The images I’m drawn to tend to be very high contrast images: the darks are dark and the lights are light — night skies with the Santa Monica Ferris Wheel silhouetted against that night sky, pools of street light on a snowy evening — things that have contrast, texture, a little grittiness.”
Now back to the important discus- sion about seating. Listen closely, for I’m about to reveal the best seat in the house according to a lighting designer. If you guessed the front row, I am sorry to inform you, but you have chosen incorrectly. According to Pilat, the best vantage point to experience the full effect of a production is center, about 8 to 15 rows back from the stage, as that is where one can see the entire composition.
When configuring a light arrangement, it’s crucial to keep in mind numerous components such as the beginning, ending and transitions of the show, genre and big picture flow. Coordinator of Pepperdine’s Theatre Program Bradley Griffin is amazed by Pilat’s precision in his designs.
“The thing that most people in the audience can’t appreciate about Ben’s work as a lighting designer is his attention to detail,” Griffin said. “If you could stand onstage and look up into the grid, you’d notice that every cable, every connection, has been tied off neatly. There’s an artistry not only to his lighting design, but also to the way he hangs the lights.”
As he begins his time at Pepper- dine, Pilat seeks not only to train bright students, but to foster an appreciation for the realm of theater.
“There is something very unique and special about being in the same room and sharing the same energy with a group of other audience members and also the connection that you get — the energy and the electricity you get by be- ing in the same room as performers,” said Pilat. “You are witnessing a live event that will never happen this way again. This is a unique, one-time event, and I want people to appreciate that. I think it’s a very powerful thing that theatre can do.”
When all is said and done, the curtains have closed and the hard work is put to rest, Pilat hopes his audience will walk away with an impression.
“Typically, I want people to leave feeling energized and inspired and wanting to have a discussion of what they saw. Regardless of what the play is, if a couple who sees a play spends part of their drive home talking about it, I’m happy. I want to inspire people to think about what they’ve seen.
